


Asleep at the Wheel

by bamboozledeagle



Series: Ducktales One-shots by Bamb [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), PKNA - Paperinik New Adventures
Genre: Donald needs a nap 2k21, Friendship, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27903583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamboozledeagle/pseuds/bamboozledeagle
Summary: Donald is very tired and his friends (and enemies) react differently to it, but also very much the same.
Relationships: Donald Duck & Lyla Lay, Donald Duck & Odin Eidolon, Donald Duck & Raider, Donald Duck & Uno | One (Disney: PKNA), Donald Duck/Uno | One (Disney: PKNA)
Series: Ducktales One-shots by Bamb [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043262
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	Asleep at the Wheel

It’s not that Donald doesn’t want to sleep.

It’s just that moonlighting as a superhero on top of making sure his nephews are up early for school, double-checking that they did their homework, planning out their meals for the week, _cooking_ their meals for the week, paying the bills, finding then getting and then _keeping_ a job can, admittedly, get in the way of a couple hours of rest. And it really is only a couple of hours of rest. He’s serious.

Nine hours of sleep is really just the recommendation after all, so if he loses three to his busy schedule and then another three to insomnia, then it’s fine. That’s still three whole hours of sleep! (and if he wakes up in a cold sweat, a scream on the edge of his lips, terror seizing his form during those three hours then that’s nobody’s business but his).

But his body has other plans and sometimes he falls asleep on his companions.

…

It’s actually one of his better days…or his worse depending on where you stood.

He’s surpassed exhaustion into that strange state of being where your body is full of energy you didn’t know you still had. Donald is just grateful he was able to run across half a ship before it exploded. Now he’s sitting uncomfortably close to Raider, the two of them crammed into an escape pod that was only meant for one person, but when the ship you’re on is exploding there’s really no time to be picky.

This sadly means that the only place Donald can be is in the pilot seat and it was already occupied by the time he got there.

Donald hadn’t cared at the time but now that the imminent threat of exploding in space is over with, he’s very aware of how warm and soft his (enemy/sometimes ally, let’s go with frenemy) frenemy is. So long as he stays away from the metal bits.

Raider looks about as happy about it as Donald feels, but Raider is too stubborn to say anything about it and Donald is starting to feel the day catch up with him.

Raider feels his companion go limp against his chest and his eyes shoot down to make sure the duck is still alive. He takes a hand off of the controls and feels for a pulse. He tries to shove down the relief he feels when he finds one.

Raider debates waking him, he’s very uncomfortable to see the normally strong hero so vulnerable with his enemy by choice, the amount of trust that’s been given to him by his enemy is making his intestines twist, but they’re still pretty far out from civilization and there’s nowhere else for the duck to lay down and go to sleep.

He lets him be.

The hero sleeps the entire way back to Earth and then some. Raider had started to wake the duck when they landed before he caught a glimpse of dark bags under his eyes. In a rare moment of kindness (hardly bestowed upon anyone other than his son), Raider simply picks the duck up and lets him sleep in his arms. The duck curls up further and a hand loosely grips the fabric of Raider’s suit.

They’re a long way away from Eidolon’s position and Raider is strong enough to carry the small duck most of the way back. His decision is bolstered by the fact that they landed in a remote area where prying eyes won’t bother him and absolutely not by how… _soft_ the duck looks tucked against him like this.

The hero hardly weighs anything anyway.

…

Lyla realizes somewhere between her first meeting with Donald and her 219th that her friend is falling asleep during lectures more and more often. At first, she had been insulted, falling asleep while she talked showed lack of interest in both her and the vital information, she was giving him to save the world, and the android had felt disrespected. Then she began comparing Donald’s sleeping habits to his biological scans.

Donald wasn’t sleeping enough.

Lyla panicked.

Biologicals _needed_ sleep for many reasons, the most prominent being an early death. If Donald wasn’t careful, he would end up in a grave at this rate. So, she hatched a plan.

During periods of time when they were together, and neither was needed for some time, she would begin to lecture Donald until the hero begins to go horizontal. Then she would heat her limbs and guide his head down to her thigh. His cape served as a blanket well enough that Lyla didn’t need to account for one. Then she would gently card her hands through his head feathers to stimulate a mother’s presence and allow him to sleep more peacefully.

She did a lot of research for her plan and she was determined to see it through.

Unfortunately, her scheme relied on opportunity more than anything else and it was extremely rare for the two of them to have an extended period of downtime together. 

But eventually, it did happen.

They were waiting for some time thieves to show up at the museum and, not knowing exactly when they would show up aside from a 48-hour window of time, they had decided to stake out the place until the criminals showed up. Lyla set up some blankets and binoculars in the bushes on the edge of the property, ready to enact her plan.

Donald tried. He really did.

He felt terrible when he fell asleep on Lyla while she was giving him information, but all the science jargon went way over his head and he couldn’t hold an interest in it to save his life and he was so tired. It always started when his cheek met his hand, eyelids struggling to stay open while she lectured, and stifling yawns, but in the end, he always lost the uphill battle as sleep won out.

It didn’t help that he hadn’t been sleeping well for the past couple of days, but now he was supposed to be on a stakeout! He had to stay awake! And then Lyla started to lecture.

She was talking about quantum physics, something about Schrodinger’s…something? Donald knew the man had a cat but that was the extent of his knowledge. His cheek fell onto his hand. Oh no.

Oh yes. It was happening and Lyla was thrilled.

Donald stubbornly put his hand down and raised his head up higher. Yes! He was going to do it! He was going to stay awake!

No! Go to sleep you stubborn duck! Lyla’s heart sank but she wasn’t about to give up yet.

Donald catches himself with his cheek in his hand more times than he cares for, unaware of the emotional whiplash he was giving his friend.

Lyla persisted. Donald stifled multiple yawns throughout the lecture, but it meant nothing if the duck refused to fall asleep.

Finally, Donald lays on his stomach, his head drifting down to his crossed arms, his eyelids heavy, exhaustion curling against him, pressing him down. Someone was running fingers through his head feathers, gently rubbing his scalp with warm fingers, Donald rolls so he can lay on his side and his head rests against something soft.

Lyla cheers silently as her friend goes to sleep on her bicep, she pulls his cape around him and resumes carding her hands through his head feathers.

Donald sleeps and Lyla is victorious.

…

“This is your fault.”

“I’m not arguing about this with you Fangus.”

The reporter glares at the menace in the net beside him. The duck is without his shield/devil arm machine and neither of them has a knife to cut themselves loose with.

“You’re a sorry excuse for a hero.”

“You’re a sorry excuse for a living creature.”

Fangus would take a swing at him, but he’s not sure where his limbs end, and the Avenger’s begins. As it stands, they both know that this is actually Fangus’ fault for getting them lost in some random forest and then stepping on the spring for the net trap that they are still stuck in.

If Donald hadn’t gotten stuck in the trap too it would have served Fangus right for confidently pushing the button on a prototype teleportation device, thinking it was fake, and teleporting both of them here.

“What made you think it was a fake?” Donald yawns, it’s the middle of the night and they’ve been walking for some time.

“Hmph.” Fangus grumps, “A teleportation device and no one talked about its development? No progress updates? No word about it being designed at all? Bullshit.”

“Have you considered the possibility that not everything makes the news?”

“A teleporter?? Not making the news?! Are you this stupid or did your brains get scrambled?” Fangus rants.

‘Better not tell him about the AI upstairs then.’ Donald thinks. After that, silence descends on the trap.

Fangus isn’t sure when they both fell asleep but he wakes up to the sound of an animal whimpering. He blinks, nocturnal eyes picking out details normally hidden, and he realizes that it wasn’t an animal, it was the Avenger sleeping next to him.

The duck’s face is screwed up in misery, brows scrunched together and raised, and his lips twisting into a grimace. It occurs to Fangus that he could pull the hero’s mask off right now and he wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Somehow that doesn’t sit right with him. He would love to demask the hero, but not like this. Fangus crosses his arms as best he can and goes back to sleep. They both wake to the sound of the PK Car arriving with Lyla. The Avenger and Fangus absolutely do not talk about how they woke up sleeping against each other and Donald has to give it to the Kiwi, his feathers are fluffy, and he made an excellent pillow.

…

Odin is no stranger to Donald’s sleeping habits. He remembers quite fondly when his friend would come into the tower after a long day and clamber up onto his spherical interface to curl up on top like a cat.

Donald would fall asleep in the tower often and it is only as Odin Eidolon that he realizes it is a great act of trust for a hero to fall asleep in the presence of another. It is with this knowledge that his heart clenches painfully as he becomes aware of the fact that Donald has fallen asleep against people that are not him.

He is not jealous per se, except that is exactly what he is.

The moment Lyla discovered this she took great joy in sending him images of Donald dozing against her, Raider, and even Fangus of all people. He knew that last one but it hurts more now than it made him laugh back then.

And so he is very surprised when Donald walks in, half asleep already, looking very much like he did moments before he would climb onto Uno’s Interface when he locates Odin. He groggily steps over to the couch and flops down on top of both it and Odin. Arms wrap around Odin’s waist and Donald buries his head into the Android’s abdomen and it is there that he promptly falls asleep.

Odin is delighted, but it is compounded by confusion. He supposes he can ask Donald later when he wakes up. For now, Odin continues flicking through his papers and signing documents as if his soul is not singing with happiness.

Donald doesn’t move for three hours. His face is smoothed out with sleep, the very picture of relaxation, and Odin is very careful not to disturb him the entire time.

“Sorry.” He says when he wakes, though he hasn’t moved from his spot and so his words are muffled by the fabric of Odin’s shirt, “You just remind me so much of someone I lost…”

“It is quite alright, Hero.” Odin soothes, “I admit the company was comforting to me as well.”

“Did you lose someone too?” Donald asks.

“I did.” Odin admits, looking down at Donald with impossibly gentle eyes filled to the brim with love, “But I will see him again.”

Donald thinks he recognizes those eyes.

“Such is the way of life.” Odin smiles, “Go back to sleep Donald, I will be here when you wake.”


End file.
